Program Proposal

Transitioning groundwater and drinking water policy in Lithuania: The role of local government, environmental impact assessment, and public participation

Abstract

The management and protection of groundwater/drinking water supplies in vital to the protection of public health. This research is timely given the numerous legal reforms taking place in groundwater/drinking water policy as Lithuania transitions and prepares for European Union membership. These facts substantiate the need to understand how authority can and should be divided and delegated among government and private-sector institutions, and how public participation and environmental impact assessment can help guide groundwater/drinking water management and decision-making. Through an analysis of Lithuanian laws and institutions in comparison to groundwater/drinking water legal and programmatic efforts of the European Union and United States, this study seeks to identify opportunities for Lithuania to improve groundwater/drinking water policy and for public participation in environmental decision-making.

Introduction and Purpose

The governmental role in the protection and monitoring of groundwater/drinking water (herein abbreviated as GWDW) is fundamental to the protection of human health and the environment. In Europe, this role has expanded greatly over the past few decades and presents a challenge to the transitioning countries of the former Soviet Union [1-6], where new systems of law and management must be developed to protect GWDW supplies. In the Baltic Region and Lithuania, this problem is particularly acute given efforts to restructure its legal system to meet European Union (E.U.) entrance requirements and find conformity with other international standards [7-9]. This restructuring has resulted in a plethora of legislation [10-12]; however, the task of implementing these laws is still largely incomplete. Several Lithuanian laws have placed the burden of monitoring, management, and regulation of GWDW largely on local government, while not providing funding nor extensive technical assistance to fulfill these new responsibilities [13-15]. Attention must be focused on building the capacity of local government to meet these challenges.

In addition to restructuring institutions for GWDW protection, Lithuania should also develop mechanisms for environmental impact assessment (EIA) and public participation, vital elements of E.U. legislation and, in general, GWDW planning. Lithuania is a signatory to the UN/ECE Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters (the Aarhus Convention) [16]. This imparts obligations on the government of Lithuania to involve the public in environmental-decision making, an obligation that will have an important effect on how EIA and GWDW planning are undertaken.

The restructuring that is currently taking place in Lithuania poses several interesting questions to lawmakers, agencies tasked with implementing the law, and the public. The first question this research will examine is: How can/should authority be divided and delegated among institutions in the monitoring, management, and regulation of groundwater and drinking water resources? The second question is: What is the role of the civil society in environmental decision-making in this reformed system? Although I choose to examine these issues in terms of GWDW, the questions have great bearing on many aspects of environmental law and governing at large.

Using U.S. and E.U. legislation as a basis for comparison, I will examine how Lithuania has restructured its law and begun the task of implementing these reforms. The purpose of this research is to examine what local and regional government institutions must do to successfully implement Lithuania’s emerging groundwater policy and what obstacles exist to implementation. I will further examine what role EIA and the public will have in this new system. The research should be of benefit to local institutions that will likely bear the burden of increased responsibility and to civil society groups that seek an increased role in environmental decision-making.

Hypotheses and Objectives

The first objective is to examine the delegation of authority and technical elements of groundwater monitoring, management, planning, and regulation. Specifically, I hope to answer the following questions:

  • What legal and institutional reforms need to take place in the areas of monitoring, assessment, standards, and regulation of groundwater to come into conformance with EU requirements and other international standards?
  • How can authority be divided among and delegated to local and national governments to facilitate implementation of these changes?

The second objective is to examine the role of public information and participation in environmental decision-making and EIA, specifically with regard to GWDW.

  • How does information availability and dissemination affect the ability of the public to participate in environmental decision-making?
  • How can Lithuania improve public/NGO participation in environmental decision-making at all levels?
  • What legal obstacles exist that inhibit public participation?
  • What other obstacles exist that inhibit public participation? Examples: access to information, dissemination of information, NGO activity that promotes information usage, and cultural characteristics.

Literature Review

This research will build upon primarily two fields of previous work, including: (1) governmental management of GWDW and wellhead protection, (2) EIA and public participation in environmental decision-making. Although these issues are currently interrelated in E.U., Lithuanian, and U.S. policy, they each have separate origins.

Governmental management of GWDW, often referred to as wellhead protection, grew out of several programmatic efforts, most notably work spearheaded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and among the states [17-20]. Wellhead protection is a particular approach to groundwater management that emphasizes decentralized control, favoring responsibility with local governments, typically at the municipal level. A good example of this program is the State of Wisconsin’s Wellhead Protection Program Plan [21].

Funding from U.S. and European countries has promoted the adoption of similar policies in the Baltic countries [22-26]. Although Lithuania has made several legal adjustments in national policies, these have not had a large effect on local management to date [11]. This research will examine how these national policies can be implemented on the local level, barriers to adoption, and opportunities for dividing responsibility and inter-institutional data sharing.

The Lithuanian Water Law of 1997 asserts that water is a public resource [10]. Numerous legal complexities arise when private property owners control a publicly managed resource, a situation revealed by substantial litigation in the U.S. and other countries. Uncertainty typically abounds with regard to the protection, management, and ownership of such resources. As trustee of the resource, the government has a fiduciary responsibility to reduce that uncertainty and to provide a mechanism for public participation in decision-making. One general approach is that conceived in the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA), a law that created a process for writing an environmental impact statement for any action of the federal government that would have significant impact on the human environment [27-29]. This approach (with its European counterparts) has become a basic tenet environmental law in many countries and the E.U.

This “EIA approach” is fundamentally related to that put forward in the Aahrus Convention. Both NEPA and Aarhus stress information and participation. Much has been written about the potential of the Aarhus Convention to shape Lithuanian environmental decision-making, although none have looked at the obstacles and methods of implementation in other countries [30, 31]. Comparing the implementation of NEPA in a large multi-stakeholder decision-making process to Lithuanian EIA law should reveal ways of improving the process, especially with regard to information dissemination and public participation [32-35].

Personally, my previous work in groundwater policy and environmental information should also provide me with a strong basis on which to pursue this research. My Master’s thesis considers the evolution of groundwater law in the western U.S., examining how authority is shared among the federal, state, and local governments. In Lithuania, I have pursued projects aimed at improving access to health and environmental information on a very practical level, such as designing geographic information systems to map, analyze, and help disseminate data. This previous work has provided me with an understanding of the institutions involved in drinking water control at the local and national level. I have also worked with Vilnius Municipality and the Lithuanian Geological Survey on some preliminary wellhead protection planning for Vilnius.

Research Plan

First, this research will examine how agencies should share responsibility in the field of GWDW protection, especially with regard to monitoring, data analysis/sharing, management, and regulation. This will be accomplished by comparing existing and proposed Lithuanian GWDW regulation to E.U./U.S. law at national and local levels. Three municipal government settings will be selected, one in each region. The local government will serve a population of a few hundred thousand. For Lithuania, Siauliai, Utena, and Alytus cities would be potential case studies. Once sites in Lithuania, the U.S., and the E.U. have been selected, each program will be evaluated in the areas shown in Table 1. Thorough analysis and interpretation among the sites will seek to identify effective institutional arrangements or types of programs. Research will also involve extensive interviewing in the case of Lithuania.

Table 1: Structural Implementation of Groundwater/Drinking Water Policy: A Comparison Between the Groundwater Policy of Lithuania the E.U./U.S.
1. Agencies involved, delegation of authority, responsibilities, capabilities
2. Monitoring, information requirements, data management
3. Strategic planning, water supply management among agencies, criteria
4. Regulation, zoning, quality control, allocation
5. Education
6. Assistance to local governments, national government/local government relationship

Second, this research will examine the EIA process and public participation in relation to GWDW. A similar approach will be taken to compare Lithuanian EIA procedures and public participation to other countries. I will also interview NGOs (Lithuanian Fund for Nature, Vilnius Nature Protection Society, etc) to supplement the research. Areas of analysis are shown in Table 2.

Table 2: Environmental Impact Assessment and Public Participation in Groundwater/Drinking Water Policy
1. Access to Environmental Information (availability, interpretation, analysis, dissemination)
2. Environmental Impact Assessment process (threshold for EIA, ranking criteria, mechanisms of public participation)
3. NGO involvement (legal avenues of participation, barriers, networking, skills)
4. Environmental Education (public, school)
5. Rural water supplies, private well owners

In addition to archival research, interviews with leaders at many levels in the field of GWDW, areas such as monitoring, distribution, management, planning, and regulation will play a substantial role in the research.

Benefits and Results

This research should play a significant role in demonstrating how Lithuania can implement GWDW and EIA law. These programming efforts have a long history in the E.U. and the U.S. and there has been very little critical analysis of Lithuanian’s swift implementation of these reforms. Through this research, I hope to:

  1. Identify an optimal distribution of GWDW authority among local and national governments in the fields of monitoring, planning, management, and regulation.
  2. Ascertain programmatic and technical creativities of monitoring, planning, management, and regulation that may facilitate implementation (such as structuring of monitoring programs or regulatory policies).
  3. Develop technical recommendations for increasing public access to environmental information, data sharing between government agencies and the public.
  4. Design measures to improve both technical and public participation aspects of the EIA process in Lithuania.

As a way of facilitating the dissemination of any outcome of research I propose to publish any and all significant materials on my organization’s web site and submit articles for publication in peer-reviewed journals.

References

1.European Union (EEC), Council Resolution of 20 February 1995 on groundwater protection, 95/C 49/01. 1995.

2.European Union (EEC), Council Directive 75/440/EEC of 16 June 1975 concerning the quality required of surface water intended for the abstraction of drinking water in the Member States, 75/440/EEC. 1975.

3.European Union (EEC), Council Directive 79/869/EEC of 9 October 1979 concerning the methods of measurement and frequencies of sampling and analysis of surface water intended for the abstraction of drinking water in the Member States, 79/869/EEC. 1979.

4.European Union (EEC), Council Directive 80/68/EEC of 17 December 1979 on the protection of groundwater against pollution caused by certain dangerous substances, 80/68/EEC. 1979.

5.European Union (EEC), Council Directive 80/778/EEC of 15 July 1980 relating to the quality of water intended for human consumption, 80/778/EEC. 1980.

6.European Union (EEC), Council Resolution of 25 February 1992 on the future Community groundwater policy, 92/C 59/02. 1992.

7.Economic Commission for Europe and W.H. Organization, Protocol on Water and Health to the 1992 Convention on the Protection and Use of Transboundary Watercourses and International Lakes, MP.WAT/AC.1/1999/1, E.a.S.C.U. Nations, Editor. 1999.

8.World Health Organization, Guidelines for Drinking-Water Quality. 1997, Geneva.

9.Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Water resource management : integrated policies. 1989, Paris, France: Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. 199.

10.Republic of Lithuania, Law on Water, No. VIII-474. 1997, Republic of Lithuania: Vilnius.

11.Republic of Lithuania, Law on Environmental Monitoring, No. VIII-529. 1997, Republic of Lithuania: Vilnius.

12.Republic of Lithuania, Law on Environmental Protection, No. I-2223. 1992, Republic of Lithuania: Vilnius.

13.Lietuvos Respublikos sveikatos apsaugos ministerija (Health Protection Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania), Pozeminio vandens vandenvieciu ir vandentiekio vamzdynu sanitarines apsaugos zonos ir prieziuros higienos normos bei taisykles (Hygiene norms and rules of designing and supervision of sanitary protection zone of groundwater intakes and networks), HN 44-1993, Lietuvos Respublikos sveikatos apsaugos ministerija (Health Protection Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania), Editor. 1994: Vilnius.

14.Lietuvos Respublikos sveikatos apsaugos ministerija (Health Protection Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania), Geriamasis vanduo: Kokybes reikalavimai ir programine prieziura (Drinking Water: Quality Requirements and Monitoring), HN 24-1998, Lietuvos Respublikos sveikatos apsaugos ministerija (Health Protection Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania), Editor. 1998: Vilnius.

15.Lietuvos Respublikos sveikatos apsaugos ministerija (Health Protection Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania), Kenksmingos medziagos: Didziausia leidziama koncentracija ir laikinai leidziamas lygis zmogaus vartojamame vandenyje (Hazardous Substances: Maximum allowable concentration and temporarily allowable level in water for consumption), HN 48-1998, Lietuvos Respublikos sveikatos apsaugos ministerija (Health Protection Ministry of the Republic of Lithuania), Editor. 1998: Vilnius.

16.Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe. Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environment and Health Matters. in Third European Ministerial Conference on Environment and Health. 1999. London.

17.Wisconsin Geological and Natural History Survey and United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Ground-Water Protection, Delineation of wellhead protection areas in fractured rocks, . 1991, Ground-Water Protection Division Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Washington, DC.

18.University of Texas at Austin. Bureau of Economic Geology, United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Water, and United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Ground-Water Protection, Wellhead protection strategies for confined-aquifer settings, . 1991, Ground-Water Protection Division Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water U.S. Environmental Protection Agency: Washington, DC.

19.United States. Environmental Protection Agency, Final comprehensive state ground water protection program guidance. 1992, Washington, D. C.: U. S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of the Administrator. 1 v. (various pagings).

20.United States. Environmental Protection Agency. Office of Drinking Water, Handbook: ground water and wellhead protection. 1994, Washington, DC: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Office of Research and Development Office of Water. xvii, 269.

21.The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, Wellhead Protection Program Plan for Public Water Supplies, . 1993, State of Wisconsin: Madison.

22.Kadunas, K., et al., A Preliminary Study of Ground-water Quality of the City of Siauliai, . 1997, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Lithuanian Geological Survey, Lithuanian Ministry of Environmental Protection: Chicago. p. 1-50.

23.Vilniaus Gediminas Technical University. Collection of Reports of the Seminar "Quality of Drinking Water and Wellhead Protection in Vilnius City". in Quality of Drinking Water and Wellhead Protection in Vilnius City. 1999. Vilnius, Lithuania: Technica.

24.Environmental Department of Siauliai City. Wellhead Protection Plan. in Ground Water Protection Management: National and Municipal Level. 1997. Siauliai: Lithuanian Geological Survey.

25.Environmental Consulting and Monitoring Centre, Latvian Surface Water Monitoring Program, . 1997, Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development of the Republic of Latvia, US Environmental Protection Agency and US Agency for International Development Technical Assistance Programme: Riga.

26.Geo Consultants, et al., Groundwater Protection Strategy, . 1997, Republic of Latvia Ministry of Environmental Protection and Regional Development: Riga.

27.Caldwell, L.K., Beyond NEPA: Future significance of the National Environmental Policy Act. Harvard Environmental Law Review, 1998. 22(1): p. 203-239.

28.Belsky, M.H., Environmental policy and NEPA: Past, present and future, by R. Clark, L. Canter. Ecosystem Health, 1998. 4(2): p. 134-136.

29.Calvert Cliffs' Coordinating Committee Inc. v. United States Atomic Energy Commission, 146 U.S. App. D.C. 33; 449 F.2d 1109; 1971 U.S. App. LEXIS 8779; 2 ERC (BNA) 1779; 17 A.L.R. Fed. 1; 1 ELR 20346, , J.S. Wright, Editor. 1971, United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.

30.Economic Commission for Europe, S. Stec, and S. Casey-Lefkowitz, The Aarhus Convention: An Implementation Guide, . 2000, United Nations: New York.

31.Hallo, R.E., Public Access to Environmental Information, . 1997, European Environmental Agency: Copenhagen. p. 1-46.

32.Vainius, L. and Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe, Case Study: Lithuania, in Status of Public Participation Practices in Environmental Decisionmaking in Central and Eastern Europe: Case Studies of Albania, Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Croatia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, FYR Macedonia, Poland, Romania, the Slovak Republic and Slovenia, R.E.C.f.C.a.E. Europe, Editor. 1995, Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe: Budapest.